Our favorite videos all week

Hey Pointers!

Thanks for coming back for another week at Compass Points. I’m busying myself in the makeshift home studio preparing the second season of Compass Points TV, which will debut in 2010. I’m stoked about the productions so far, and I think you will be, too, when the vids are released.

Since I’ve been scaling mountains of .mov files with Final Cut editing software and utilizing the rule of thirds for video composition, I figure we could celebrate this week by displaying the best in hiking videos on the Web.

There’s a lot of good efforts at YouTube and BackpackerTV, but frankly, a lot of them skip the tripod in favor of handheld video recording, which leads to viewer vertigo. And the shaky video quality never really gives you a feel for where the hiker is filming.

There are some real pros and quality amateurs out there who give us some entertaining and informative vids. I’m going to highlight a few this week.

We’re starting with a video about a thru-hike of the John Muir Trail, the celebrated 215-mile path through California’s most spectacular wilderness – Yosemite National Park, Ansel Adams Wilderness, Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park and all the way to 14,000-foot high Mount Whitney.

What I like about this vid is the well-done storytelling technique, giving hints about this group of teenager’s struggles with the trail and letting us know a little of their personalities. But by the end, they’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to hike the John Muir Trail. The vid is shot in HD, so the scenery is spectacular, although I would have liked to know a little more about the trail, the wilderness and so on. As a Web video, however, it serves as an excellent introduction to the JMT and the Sierra Nevadas. Check out the star field pics included.